The Memphis Tigers men’s basketball team suffered a 102-92 loss against the No. 3 Tennessee Volunteers. Memphis now moves to a 5-5 record, and they suffer their first home-court loss of head coach Penny Hardaway’s coaching career. Despite the loss, Kyvon Davenport led the team with 31 points, 11 rebounds and shooting 4-5 from the arc in his third double-double of the season.
“We've just got to continue to work harder,” Hardaway said. “The second half was more of what we wanted. We just couldn’t put two halves together.”
The 18,528 sellout crowd was the largest since 2014, back in the Josh Pastner's era. Memphis now has a 0-3 record against ranked opponents this season, but they have held their own against those opponents. Davenport said he feels the team is better than those opponents.
“I feel like we’re better than these teams, and we just got to execute more,” Davenport said. “We've got the same type of team they've got — even better.”
Tennessee extends their all-time series lead to 15-11 and breaks Memphis’ three-game winning streak against the Volunteers. The last time these teams met, Memphis had the upper hand winning 85-80 in Knoxville in 2013. Memphis allowed Tennessee’s second 100-point game in the last eight seasons.
The first half was more downs than ups for the home team as they shot as low as seven percent from the field, and they ended the first half shooting 27 percent from the field. Meanwhile, Tennessee shot 52 percent on the floor and 43 percent on 6-14 three-point shooting. Memphis’ only lead lasted nine seconds when they were leading 3-2 with Tyler Harris making three free throws after being fouled behind the arc to start the game. Mike Parks Jr. led the team in the first half with six points and three rebounds in only eight minutes of action.
The Volunteer's offense benefited from good ball movement as they had 14 assists in the first half to have the 50-35 lead in halftime. Grant Williams led the team at halftime with 14 points, four assists and three rebounds.
Memphis fought back in the second half reducing the lead to as low as seven points. A lot of that came from nagging Tennessee's offense to turn the ball over nine times in the half with 18 total turnovers. Turnovers and steals were the keys in the game for the Tigers, but they didn’t take advantage on the other end. Tennessee still outscored Memphis 15-14 off of turnovers from nine Memphis turnovers.
Tennessee's Admiral Schofield led his team with 29 points and 11 rebounds while scoring 20 of those in the second half. He left wanting to make a statement for his program in the Memphis and Tennessee rivalry.
"The biggest thing for us was coming out here and making a statement for our program on a stage that we felt was big for our state," Schofield said. "The rivalry is definitely renewed."
Davenport led Memphis off the bench scoring 26 of his 31 points in the second half to keep Memphis in the game. He surprised Tennessee with a strong offensive performance as he shot 10-12 from the field and was a perfect 3-3 from the three-point line. Davenport spoke about his confidence after a solid performance against a No. 3 ranked team.
“It shows what I’m capable of doing,” Davenport said. “I just need to keep working and get better every day so I can stay more consistent throughout the whole season.”
Memphis looks to go back over .500 as they face Little Rock on Wednesday in Memphis. Tip-off is at 7.p.m.
Kyvon Davenport contests a layup by a Jordan Bowden. Davenport led the team with 31 points and 11 rebounds in the 102-92 loss.
